It is from a pro-tenant organization Rent Wars that has a website and TV show that chronicles the travails of tenants who live in buildings owned and operated by Slumlords. It hopes to educate tenants as to their rights. Their website is :

Special case observed. Observed in trial part.

Judge Jimenez has a bubbly demeanor and is friendly, but she loses points for constantly interrupting pro se litigants and breaking what little momentum a pro se can muster. She also tends to rule on cases and issues before hearing them, but is fairly interactive and seems to think of herself as open minded. So she at least lets litigants complain as they get wasted.

Judge Jimenez at first appears to be courteous to pro se litigants, but in actuality is rather rude. She interrupts constantly and treats pro se's with a true disregard for what they have to say.

Before becoming a Judge, Jimenez was a partner at the largest eviction mill in the city, Borah, Goldstein, Altschuler & Schwartz, P. C. Her entire legal career was spent evicting tenants, over 90% of whom were pro se. Judge Jimenez brings her experience to bear against tenants. With her as judge it's as if the big money Slumlords have two legal teams against the tenant.

She does do a good job of explaining the law as she sees it. Which is to say "tenants lose!"

Judge Jimenez was observed in a relatively rare situation handling a case in which a sleazy lawyer on the Housing Court Advisory Council was accused of an ethical conflict of interest. Rather than making a legal argument, the conflicted attorney decided to present the "how dare anyone question me!" and "this is the eleventh hour!" (raised on the first appearance? And raised years earlier?) smokescreen 'defenses' with a hidden, politely presented subtextual threat: "rule against me and I'll screw with your reappointment." A threat which the tenant might not be expected to understand.

In stark contrast to Judge Chen, Judge Jimenez managed to hit every ethical landmine that existed, leaving none unexploded. Unlike Judge Chen, Judge Jimenez had the example of Judge Chen to follow. In fact, by law under the doctrine of Rule of the Case, she is required to follow Judge Chen's rulings and findings as well as those of other previous judges. Instead Judge Jimenez, without reading any of the papers and prior to a hearing, declared that she didn't see any merit to the issue and would rule against the tenant. When reminded that a judge had already ruled that there was an issue, and that it had been sent to her for a hearing on the factual issues, she shrugged and suggested that ethical issues didn't matter in Housing Court.

Far worse, is that Judge Jimenez has a view of judicial and legal ethics that would allow judges to take cash retainers from lawyers years in advance. In her view, once three years has passed the judge is free to fix cases for her buddies to her heart's content. In her view an attorney is free to accept money from an opponent and switch sides in the middle of cases. An attorney is free to get confidential information from a client and then show up in court for their opponent, again, with an arbitrary 3 years limit. Wow! With her as a judge attorneys can completely forget about the duty of loyalty. Fortunately, the Second Department has published cases refuting these assertions.

In her courtroom she prevents tenants from even presenting proof that an attorney has lied. In the example observed Judge Jimenez refused to order an attorney to provide the Certified Mail number of certified mailings allegedly served on a tenant. Judge Jimenez, and judges like her, are directly responsible for the massive flood of evictions based on improper service. Tens of thousands of tenants in this city have been evicted without receiving proper and timely notice. She willfully acts without jurisdiction, and she willfully aids and abets attorneys in continuing service fraud. Sewer service was the tactic du jour in the 30's, Judges like Jimenez allow fresh life to old sleaze.

Before becoming a Judge, Jimenez was a partner at the largest eviction mill in the city, Borah, Goldstein, Altschuler & Schwartz, P. C. Her entire legal career was spent evicting tenants, over 90% of whom were pro se. The Landlord Bar is one of the sleaziest, if not the sleaziest, subgroupings of lawyers in this city. Judge Jimenez brings that sleaze to the bench. But this is not a surprise, for those of you who have been following Rent Wars News, Borah, Goldstein was featured in one of our first episodes, Andrea v. the Giant, wherein we detailed the sleazy incompetent tactics of a firm gone mad.

Additionally, as a former partner of Borah Goldstein, like Judge Bedford who is profiled seperately for ignoring basic foundations of the modern law for the same client, there is this issue of her sitting as judge over a case with one of the largest slumlords in the city, who happens to be, according to their own lawyers, one of the largest clients of Borah Goldstein. We all know that Housing Judge is not a lifetime career. After the Housing bench, most former Landlord attorneys go back to the firms in which they were spawned. Is making bogus rulings for clients of the firm you would return to a form of job security? It stinks, and no judge should be involved in such foul dealings. In this time of judicial scandal, it's amazing that you can still put Housing Judges on retainer.

There may also be an issue as to whether or not the HCAC swaggering buffoonish lawyer contributed money to the Jimenez campaign.

Judge Jimenez doesn't just give Slumlord attorney's arguments more weight, she joins in as if she's the Slumlord's own attorney. She doesn't even wait to hear the tenant's side of the argument before taking a side in the debate.

One grotesque example is her trial rulings and techniques. In law it is a given that on Redirect examination you can explore the areas touched on by Cross-examination. Not in Judge Jimenez's court if you're a tenant or pro se. She stops the examination as irrelevant. When brought to her attention that it was allowed on Cross (and beyond the scope of Direct at that!!!) she basically just shrugs. So while the Slumlord attorneys are allowed to ask about prior related cases, when the tenant attempts to address those same prior cases she stops them.

She also seems overly impressed by Slumlord attorneys who take the stand and rebut tenants with such gems as "There was no plexiglass, the doors were inch thick glass!" (presumably tenants are supposed to test the type of glass with bricks or something). She allows Slumlord attorneys leeway to ask hypothetical questions of tenants while consistently blocking tenants and pro se's from asking about relevant facts. So absurd were the proceedings in front of her that she allowed the Slumlord attorney to imply that the tenant had psychic powers of precognition!

In no way shape or form was an attorney encouraged to stick to the truth in her courtroom. Blatant and obvious lies were welcomed.

The only saving point of Judge Jimenez's trial proceedings is her generosity with time (but how much is that worth when a judge cuts off even such basics as the scope of Redirect??).

Notes-

Judge Jimenez is currently running for Civil Court. These observations were made in early July, 2003. We are frankly amazed that any judge running for office, especially in this time of intense scrutiny of judicial misconduct, would act in so blatant and unethical a manner. We shudder to think how she might act when the scrutiny is reduced.

In her campaign for Civil Court she is running as an alleged reformer. The only reform we can see is that with her as a judge, corrupt Slumlords get direct control over a judicial officer, sans the party bosses. While it does eliminate the party hacks from influence peddling, streamlined corruption isn't what we consider reform!

Courtroom staff at time of observations:

Courtroom Attorney: Professional. The only scare point is that he was observed discussing the difficulties he has evicting tenants because he is required to file evictions in Manhattan.... Egad...